AGUSAN DEL NORTE—Mindoro Resources Limited (MRL), a Canada–based mining company, will use the investment of International Finance Corporation (IFC) for the exploration of the Agata Nickel Project in the Surigao district on Mindanao Island.

IFC claimed that it will work with MRL to ensure that exploration and any subsequent mine development are carried out in an environmentally and socially sustainable manner.

The Mamanwa tribe wrote a complaint letter to the Compliance Advisor⁄Ombudsman of IFC regarding the exploration without proper consultation of MRL mining company in the ancestral land of the Mamanwa.

Tribal community members supervised by tribal chieftain Bae Genoviva A. Colangan executed a letter last December 3, 2010. The complaint letter against MRL states:

We don't want the MRL mining company to encroach in our ancestral domain because we don't want our forest to be destroyed.

We don't want our area to be extracted because it will be in one of our sacred places, which has been very important for us and our culture since time immemorial.

They entered into our ancestral land without proper information and consent from us.

They don't even respect indigenous people's rights.

Mamanwa tribe's relationship will be in trouble.

There will be no traditional sources of income.

Indigenous culture will disappear.

The right of land will be wiped out.

Displacement of the Mamanwa tribe members.

Twenty–nine traditional elders and leaders of Mamanwa tribe signed the grievance letter which strongly opposes the MRL mining exploration and operation in the Mamanwa ancestral land.